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The much-anticipated Giant Slide at Belle Isle Park in Detroit, Michigan has been closed indefinitely because of safety concerns.
The Giant Slide is a much-loved and integral part of the Detroit landscape, typically overrun with eager customers all summer long. The ride was closed for updates and the public had been eagerly waiting for it to reopen for the rest of the summer.
But just hours after the ride was reopened, parents expressed concern the ride was unsafe for their children.
The Giant Slide is about 40 feet tall at the top. Riders sit on cloth as they slide down the large metal slide, which was shaped into a ripple pattern of hills and valleys on the way to the bottom.
Videos began to surface online, including YouTube, Twitter and TikTok, of children going too fast down the slide and catching air as they came off of one of the hills.
Listening to any of the videos, viewers can hear the riders thudding back down on the slide. Some of the riders were seen spiraling out of control, being forced to lie down for the rest of the ride or their heads being unsafely jostled.
Kenyatta Mcadney, a father of two children who rode the Giant Slide, observed:
"What I noticed was the impact they were hitting the ground with coming off the hills. If they would have kept riding on that slide, somebody would have got hurt."
Mcadney's son, Keymarr, also said of the ride:
"I was going down way faster than I thought I was. Gravity hurts."
Mcadney made the decision to part with the tickets they had for the park, even though they had been paid for and were non-refundable.
You can see more about the incident here:
The news was also shared on Twitter where viewers experienced a mix of emotions.
Some were deeply concerned about injuries and how long the ride remained open.
\u201c@missforehead @artcombatpod Just get up and we will deal with it. Lol how is this real??\u201d— Art (@Art) 1660946823
\u201c@artcombatpod This looks horrible.\u201d— Art (@Art) 1660946823
\u201c@DanielHinman7 @artcombatpod *turns gravity down a notch*\u201d— Art (@Art) 1660946823
\u201c@Tloredsfan @artcombatpod Literally the only \u201cadjustment\u201d they could make\u2026\u201d— Art (@Art) 1660946823
\u201c@artcombatpod They let people do that for 4 HOURS?!\u201d— Art (@Art) 1660946823
\u201c@artcombatpod \ud83d\ude02\ud83d\ude02\ud83d\ude02\ud83d\ude2d the one who ended first had it ROUGH, jack.\u201d— Art (@Art) 1660946823
\u201c@artcombatpod Did anybody try this thing out before it was opened to the public?\u201d— Art (@Art) 1660946823
\u201c@artcombatpod @nick_pants Seems like it was open for 3 hours 59 mins 53 secs too long.\u201d— Art (@Art) 1660946823
\u201c@artcombatpod Damn! Who designed this, the police? Looks like a contraption for forcing a confession out of someone.\u201d— Art (@Art) 1660946823
Others thought of rides they'd experienced as children that clearly were not safe.
\u201c@artcombatpod @SavelSells They haven\u2019t been on one of these before and it shows\u201d— Art (@Art) 1660946823
\u201c@artcombatpod japanese famous movie.\n\u201d— Art (@Art) 1660946823
\u201c@white10_tony @artcombatpod Oh no, all his bones fell out.\u201d— Art (@Art) 1660946823
\u201c@artcombatpod @GreatDismal Good grief, it reminds me of Action Park\u201d— Art (@Art) 1660946823
\u201c@artcombatpod Brought to you by the folks who made the machine that kills children\u201d— Art (@Art) 1660946823
It's unclear at this time if or when the Giant Slide will be open to the public again.
But since this is not the first time the ride has been closed for safety reasons, something clearly needs to be done to make it safer for customers.